Saudi Arabia: Recommendations of UPR miss the mark for human rights defenders

Despite the marginal role granted to NGOs advocating human rights in the review process, Alkarama presented a summary report addressing the overall situation of human rights in the country and made recommendations including: the need for establishment of a monitoring system to fight against the practice of prolonged detention without trial and incommunicado detention, the right of any detained person to exercise judicial review to challenge the validity of the detention and to qualify for a legal process with all guarantees of a fair trial, and the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the incorporation into domestic law the crime of torture as defined by Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture (CAT). According to Alkarama, there exist serious shortcomings related to the above points, in that they were not sufficiently noted by the delegations present during the Review. 

Saudi Arabia has participated in this review with a large delegation of 49 members. The representative of Saudi Arabia has acknowledged the violations against the rights of women, while attributing them to punishable "individual practices". He agreed that much remains to be done to ensure the protection and defense of human rights. He however noted the need to fight against terrorism while ensuring respect for human rights. 

States which have actively contributed to the report of Saudi Arabia on 6 February 2009 outlined 70 recommendations, of which Saudi Arabia has rejected 17, while the others remain pending. It should be noted that none of the recommendations made addressed the problem of arbitrary and incommunicado detention, while the systematic torture of political opponents was addressed by only one State, namely the Canada in recommendation No. 24. 

Shortly before the adoption of the report of the Working Group by the HRC, Saudi Arabia submitted a document in which it agrees to accept all the pending recommendations; however, by subjecting them to important limitations such as the need to comply with Saudi Arabian domestic law. In addition to this, no deadline was set by the Saudi representative to implement this commitment. 

Among the 17 rejected recommendations included: the withdrawal of general and specific reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, a recommendation submitted by seven different countries; non-discrimination in matters of religion, creed or ethnic origin, in particular with regard to foreign workers and a moratorium on capital punishment as a preamble to its eventual abolition; prohibiting the application of corporal punishment; putting an end to incarceration procedures, abuse and travel bans applied to people because of their political or religious beliefs. 

It should be recalled that Saudi Arabia has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture  nor the Convention against Enforced Disappearance. 

Alkarama, whose work is primarily focused on extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention and unfair trials, is particularly concerned by the lack of interest shown by the delegations involved, which only appear to condemn violations as serious as arbitrary detention, and prolonged solitary confinement, torture and unfair trials. Since 2001, these violations are particularly aggravated, particularly in the context of the fight against terrorism, which often serves as a pretext to criminalize political opposition.